"I felt we made a mistake in building a baseball field. I thought that should have been the ice skating rink, because I think hockey in this state right now, not just hockey, but ice skating, if you come up to our office building at 6:00 in the morning, some mornings you can't get a parking spot because parents have taken their kids up here to skate...I think hockey will be a great addition to our intercollegiate program. [The Pegula gift] is a great, great gift. And I think very far-sighted and I'm really pleased with it." - Joe Paterno

19 comments:

It makes sense to play MTU. Since the Huskies are the oldest team in college hockey. Also. the legendary coach John MacInnes believed in playing new college programs because he liked to see college hockey expand.

I wish they had scheduled Princeton for a couple of reasons:1) parallel the 1st football game played by Penn State - also against Princeton.2) the natural publicity generated by Coach Gadowsky returning to his previous position.3) it's close to me !

Haha love how you hide the ulterior motive until the end...they were reportedly in talks with Princeton at one point, ironically before Gadowsky was hired. Not that it helps you (or anyone, for that matter) much with #3, but PSU has supposedly agreed to play in the 2014 Brice Alaska Goal Rush hosted by another of Gadowsky's former employers.

As an RPI alumnus, I'd like to see Penn State play RPI (from the ECAC) sometime. RPI and Cornell are the only schools in New York State to win the NCAA Division I Hockey Championship. Both schools have two championships in hockey. If Penn State can field good teams in the future, they could hopefully grab a championship for PA. No team from PA has won the championship. (In fact, Cornell and RPI are the only schools to win from an East Coast state not named Maine or Massachusetts.)

Can't wait for the new B1G Hockey season to start. And welcome Penn State to D1 Hockey. It should be a year to remember. I want to see the new Pegula Ice Arena during it's first year. When is the schedule coming out so I can plan a road trip when Wisconsin plays? Can't wait to hear how loud it will get in the Pegula Ice Arena and all of the excitement. PSU should be very proud to have D1 hockey and I hope they do well (except with the Badgers). I've been to Happy Valley for Football and the PSU fans are some of the best in the country. I'm sure that they will do this program proud too.

I deleted this comment by accident, sorry about that, but it stated that it was mentioned "on air" last week that RIT will travel to PSU next year. To the author: could you be more specific with the source? PSU radio? RIT radio? Thanks!

Is the Alabama-Huntsville series in 2013-14 going to be home (as listed) or away? It seems odd to me that UAH would agree to come to PSU again next season and would be more likely to be an away trip for PSU. Is there is a source for this?

Let's schedule Cornell. Cornell and Army are the only D1 hockey programs that are still around from the time way back when PSU was had their program. We already have Army on the schedule, Cornell would be tough but a hugh draw.

I hope that's what it means too, but it didn't matter last year, when we played RMU at the 3RC 13 days after playing them at the Ice Pavilion (and Miami had just played Ohio State within the month as well, I believe). They (mostly meaning the RMU side) are really trying to push the idea of a PSU-RMU rivalry, so if I had to bet on it, I'd still say we get RMU to open.